eBay’s Chief Marketing Officer had a few nice announcements to make this evening. First up was the eBay Mastercard, available in three cute designs. One lucky applicant received a gift token for $5000; the rest of those who signed up could content themselves with the promiser that the card would tie in neatly with their Paypal account, making online payments seamless.
Rather more fun was the announcement of eBay’s involvement with the new Transformers movie. The standard theatre trailer didn’t give any clues as to just what eBay had to do with it – though it’s very clear that my memory of some cars that turned into robots in an 80s cartoon is way outclassed by this film and its stunning special effects. A special eBay-only trailer showed a child who had seemed to have won back his grandfather’s possessions on eBay: giving a talk about his genealogy to his school class, he uttered the immortal line “It’s on eBay, they take Paypal, cash or cheque”. No, I can’t figure the connection either, but you can be sure it’s getting the eBay message to some of the most aquisitive characters I know: small boys who like robots.
